To run and
be bound, to keep the
journeyed road–
yes it goes
on, held and released, goes on
running, forever,

and is the path not
paved with our feet? All gonna
meet at the end. Let
your voice travel between em,
those lines that surround and catch
the singing, all the
hymns of light, blues of Midnight–
trailing that Rider.

What a beautiful boy he was. But his face grew into his music. I was lucky enough to see the Allman Brothers a few years back in one of their NYC residences.

Shovel poem using two lines from Gregg Allman’s song “Midnight Rider” (read the last words of each line straight down).

My father Joseph Zimel was part of the greatest generation. He was older when he enlisted in the Army; his fellow soldiers called him Gramps. The Army recognized his intelligence (he had to drop out of high school due to the Great Depression) and they sent him to Officers Candidate School where he attained the rank of Captain. Unlike some men he spoke about his experiences in World War Two until his dying day. I have kept his uniform despite my deceased sister wanting to donate it to the Smithsonian. I also have his medals, a shred of a Japanese flag, some snapshots of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and other mementos. I am very proud of his bravery and I salute him and all the other veterans and men and women on active duty.

On the other hand I wish all war would cease and that we could live in peace.

Circle enclosing one
imperfectly caught life–
between thinking and acting out–
completed inside the border, this face,
this arrangement of edges on intersections
including
intersections on edges of arrangement–this
face, this border, the inside completed
out—acting and thinking between
life caught imperfectly–
one enclosing
circle.

Instead of painting this one, I used Neocolors, which worked well through layering to give the irregularity of each color Klee produced with paint. It was a real challenge–trying to get the geometry while maintaining at least a little resemblance. I think I want to try this one in collage as well. It would be like assembling a puzzle.

The circle shape of the head inspired the poem, which was also a challenge. It uses the palindrome form, where the second half reverses the word order of the first half with one word as connector. Finding words that work in both directions is also like solving a puzzle…well I do like to play with words.

You can see all the self portraits in the “100 Self Portrait” series here. Four-fifths to go.